Yes, I do agree that CN for Asia might have gone up for DV-2009. My friend's CN for DV-2009 Asia is 31XXX.
To know more about your chances, you should wait for the September 2008 bulletin, and hopefully they will post the numbers of applicants for each country that were notified for DV-2009.
Here are some info based on previous visa bulletins.
DV-2008: 14,142 Asia applicant ("CURRENT" in August 2008, 13,400 in July 2008)
DV-2007: 11,929 Asia applicant ("CURRENT" in August 2007, 7,750 in July 2007)
DV-2006: 11,473 Asia applicant ("CURRENT" in September 2006, 7,700 in August 2006)
DV-2005: 13,804 Asia applicant (11,400 in September 2005, 2,404 never got a chance at all to apply)
DV-2004: 19,628 Asia applicant (16,300 in September 2004, 3,328 never got a chance at all to apply)
DV-2003: unknown total of Asia applicant (21,400 in September 2003)
DV-2002: unknown total of Asia applicant ("CURRENT" in September 2002, 16,700 in August 2002)
Note:
The total number of applicants are usually out in either August / September prior to the start of the DV fiscal year. For example, for DV-2008, I added up all the numbers for each country (in Asia) on the September 2007 visa bulletin under the "DV-2008 results" section.
I was under the impression that the rate the numbers move forward depends on the total numbers of applicants from that region on that given year (i.e. where you are in the queue).
This is purely speculative. I am new to this DV thing. Let me know if I made a wrong interpretation from the visa bulletin.
Cheers,
Will